Saturday's Gliding Club News-13th May 2023

There was some conflict in the weather forecasts in respect to the direction. Some forecasts were showing a definite easterly tendency so the airfield was set up on that basis. However, after the first 4 launches it was obvious that the promised easterly was shaping up to be somewhere between nil to light westerly so a change of ends was called for. These initial launches did allow us to test out the GusLaunch winch to ensure that our reserve was still viable. The second Supercat winch is still waiting for the repaired parts.

Getting the fleet ready

The early soaring was difficult to sat the least with most flights being circuits until about 1.30pm when the thermals low down lifted gliders into the better conditions above 1800ft. At about this time, unseen from the ground, a convergence formed very close to the airfield. The clouds for this were coming and going rapidly; unusual. This is what pilot John Allan thought.

John pulling the Mini Nimbus into line

Took a launch to a kit 1400ft in KPV and after giving up on what looked like a promising cloud ahead of me, turned back to see if I could find a better climb just along the valley north of the airfield and on route to high key.  Around level with the top field a weak thermal got me slowly to cloudbase at about 2200ft. I then realised there was lift up the side of it, and once I'd worked out it was convergence, and explained why we had a solid crosswind from the south on the airfield, when a North Easterly wind had been forecast and was experienced at the top of the launch.   I found I could fly up and down the NW edges of the clouds that were forming. These generally have about 1.5 to 3Kn average climbs to over 4000ft, the best was 4600ft near to the top of the convergence cloud system over Blackdown.  Several times I climbed up alongside these towering cliffs of cloud, then found the whole cloud system would suddenly evaporate within a minute or so, with a new one regenerating within reach with a short glide.

Climbing up the side of the clouds

The clouds were recycling quickly

5.5knots of climb is almost showing off John

Several pilots were able to take advantage of this. John 's flight of 2:40 was the longest of the day followed closely by Richard Roberts (Discus) at 2:27 and Adam Hosking (K6) at 1:34.

Training continued throughout the day with steady progress being made all around. It was interesting to see early solo pilot Steve Lesson flying the K8 for the first time.

Our visitors today were One Day Course Candidate Christopher Parson, Trial flight couple Adam and Bethany Jordan and trial lesson visitor Adam Luckhurst..

Bethany and Adam Jordan

Chistopher Parson

Adam Luckhurst.

A challenging day but great fun anyway.

Steve